The former Commitments singer, Hothouse Flower and founder (along with her husband Kieran Kennedy) of the Black Velvet Band has spent the past four years writing and recording the album in between raising the kids (one of whom is 15) and paying the bills through the odd acting job. At present it's her role as Catherine of Aragon supporting Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Sam Neill in The Tudors that is gaining most attention in the US. The drama is due to be aired on BBC in the autumn If her acting pays the bills for the singing career, it is a fair trade-off but given the choice between being an A-list actress or a platinum-selling artist there is no contest. "I enjoy acting. It's a chance to dress up and tell a story . . . like having a fantasy life as a kid. I act therefore I eat, in some ways. But I don't ever miss it and I don't ever crave it, whereas I can't do without singing and the songs come unbidden. They bang around in my head until I get around to writing them. Music is kind of essential. The acting is kind of decoration." She knows she's very lucky to be able to do both.

Her album Mutter, co-written and recorded with her husband, formerly of Blue In Heaven, is an endearingly curious fish in the fairly stagnant pond of female singer-songwriters. For starters it sounds at times like it has been recorded at the bottom of an ocean, with a fug of guitar and foamy squalls beating forward and back over the singer's insistent, sultry drawl. It's selfconsciously uncommercial and in thrall to the likes of My Bloody Valentine, the Cocteau Twins and current bands such as Low and Smog.

"I kind of came late to that kind of music, " says Doyle. "Bands like My Bloody Valentine didn't make sense to me back then. I only really got it about five years ago.

It was as if I was now mature enough to hear the melody and I wasn't when I was younger . . . it was too discordant. It floored me when I got it."

Lyrically the album focuses on "patterns of behaviour and relationships, " she says. "I just find human beings and the way they relate in groups of two or more endlessly astonishing."

Getting the sound was a less obvious process. Having laid down a lot of the tracks with Kieran on acoustic guitar a friend came to her with a novel by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk and said simply: "I've just read your album."

"I thought that was an amazing thing to say, " she says, before going on to explain how the plot centres around a woman whose husband is in a coma.

"It's totally mental . . . a total page turner but it's also really interesting and clever. There's a lot of talk about repetitious cycles of behaviour. That's what I had been talking about a lot in the songs. Buttons that you have that get pushed or that you can't push. Signs or omens that are constantly missed or discovered too late. The main thing in the book is the spooky, ethereal atmosphere which became a sonic map for the album."

She also cut herself off from music before the recording process and instead fed her head other ways. She went to the theatre, art galleries and did plenty of "doodling" (all the album artwork is done by Doyle Kennedy).

With the songs almost finished Doyle Kennedy was asked to try out for the part in The Tudors, which had been offered to someone else first. "I had to decide in an hour whether to do it or not and when I had finished filming I was really fresh."

Such freedom comes from being able to release her music on her own label, although not having a major label continues to place restrictions on the marketability of the work. Mind you it doesn't help your case when your first single is titled 'Fuckability'. "Indeed, no, it doesn't, " she laughs, "but I didn't make a very commercial record anyway." It's hard enough getting airplay as it is. "There aren't very many people here on radio that are brave. And I'm not just talking about playing a song that has a swear word in it although I have to say there is only one curse in the whole song . . . it's really quite humorous. . . [DJs] want it to be proven somewhere else first. Even in the alternative world they want it to come from some cool underground place first which is a pity because there is so much really great music here that's not getting on the radio. I bought the Feist record after I heard it on Edel Coffey's show on Phantom but I wouldn't have heard it anywhere else. Her show is always really interesting."

Doyle Kennedy is still very good friends with her first band, The Hothouse Flowers. Liam O'Maonlai is godfather to one of her children and she also remembers fondly her days in the Black Velvet Band, who were big enough in their day to have toured the US and play couple of Feiles.

As for The Commitments, "it's nearly 20 years ago so it's really hard to remember". She's more likely to get recognised from gigging or from her appearance in Father Ted.

Once the new baby arrives Doyle plans to move herself and the family to Spain to learn Flamenco singing. "We thought it might be a nice challenge for the family. We wouldn't have any friends there and we can't speak Spanish. It's such an interesting country. They are hanging onto their culture in a way that we seem to be shipping out."

Mutter is out now on Mermaid Maria Doyle Kennedy is currently on tour nationwide